Thea Renee’s owners, Erwin and Phyllis, have lovingly cared for their beautiful boat, especially its gleaming, perfectly varnished teak. This picture captures them sailing through the anchorage at Stone Island, off Mazatlan, with their tanbark sails flying.
We’re moving away from varnish and opting for the choice Paul and Tamar made on Xanadu. Paul had tried everything in his years as the owner of a boat with lots of lovely brightwork. Now he uses Semco, which allows the teak to retain its just-sanded look. Much, much easier on the application side. We’ll see how it works on Sea Venture’s miles of caprail. As I, Normandie, age, I need a less labor-intensive maintenance schedule. We took advantage of the low labor rates here in Mazatlan to get most of the varnish removed. The low rate meant the fellow did the work to his satisfaction, not ours, so we’ve had to resand all the hard-to-reach areas. We offered to pay more, but that meant harder work. Sorry, said he, as he pocketed his paltry fee and slunk away.
